Nintendo's Revolution console will be powered by a 729MHz processor - 50 per cent more clock cycles than its predecessor in the GameCube - and a graphics chip set to run at 243MHz, it has been claimed.

The details come courtesy of IGN which claims to have got the numbers from game development studio sources. As Nintendo has itself said in the past, the Revolution's CPU is being custom-made by IBM and is based on the PowerPC architecture, as was the GameCube's processor. Codenamed 'Broadway', the new chip contains not only the processing core, but additional DSP functionality, I/O control circuitry and 3MB of texture memory.

The sources claim the console will contain a further 24MB of main memory. Like the GameCube, Revolution will use MoSys' 1T-SRAM technology, which brings SRAM speeds to the kind of capacities only DRAM can offer. The 24MB are described as "internal" memory, and there's said to be a further 64MB of "external" 1T-SRAM, presumably on some sort of card, though whether it's user-accessible isn't clear at this stage.

The device is also said to contain 512MB of Flash memory.

Broadway connects to 'Hollywood', the ATI-designed GPU, which is likewise clocked 50 per cent higher than the GameCube's GPU. ®